Convention Center design includes more space and pedestrian bridge

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An artist's rendering of an expanded San Diego Convention Center. The proposed expansion on the bay side would add nearly 400,000 square feet to the structure.
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Image by Joe Cordelle.
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— San Diego Union-Tribune

An artist's rendering of an expanded San Diego Convention Center. The proposed expansion on the bay side would add nearly 400,000 square feet to the structure.
Image by Joe Cordelle.
/ San Diego Union-Tribune

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO 
Architects working on a new San Diego Convention Center wing say it wouldn't just be for tourists but would offer something for locals, such as a rooftop restaurant and a pedestrian bridge with easier access to San Diego Bay.

The city's nonprofit Convention Center agency today will unveil the preliminary layout of a hoped-for expansion that would bring the entire building to 1.2 million square feet.

The expansion is not as big as initially desired because of land constraints at the only site deemed workable.

But it would keep San Diego in the top 13 American convention cities, according to one estimate, though many others are also eyeing expansions.

And it would be big enough to continue housing the mega-show Comic-Con if the San Diego-born comic book convention wants to stay, Convention Center President Carol Wallace said.

Mayor Jerry Sanders appointed a task force to determine whether the city should expand the center, which currently measures 814,000 square feet, including 615,000 square feet of exhibit space. The task force, which has issued no opinion, will see a presentation on the preliminary architectural plans at a public meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. today at the Convention Center.

A spokesman for Tucker Sadler, the architecture firm that designed the 2001 expansion and was hired for initial work on what would be the center's third phase, said a main concern was opening better access to the bay and enlivening the bayfront walkway, known as the embarcadero.

“We want to make sure that people walk the entire embarcadero, that there is something there for them to experience,” said Gregory Mueller, president of Tucker Sadler.

The new wing would sit in front of the existing building, on the bay side. It would rise 40 feet above the southern wing but stand about as tall as the structure's signature “sails,” officials said.

The design team discarded another site — across Harbor Drive on parking lots now used by Petco Park, including Tailgate Park — because a previously unknown finger of the Rose Canyon earthquake fault was discovered there.

One eye-catching element of the bayfront design would be a 57-foot-high pedestrian bridge stretching from Fourth Avenue, across the Convention Center, to the water. Currently, walkers must summit a mountain of steps or take a slow-moving elevator to get from the Harbor Drive side to the bay side of the long building.

The city's Centre City Development Corp. is overseeing construction of a publicly financed, $26.8 million pedestrian bridge just down Harbor Drive at Park Boulevard. Views of that structure, meant to be iconic, would not be blocked because it will be lower, at 25 feet above the street, convention officials said.

One new aspect would be an improved pedestrian promenade along the bayfront, where navigation now is not straightforward. The new building would extend out toward the water, taking up what is currently a parking lot, but leave a 35-foot-wide walkway and a 25-foot-wide buffer area where cafe tables and chairs could spill out.

Another element of the design, which remains preliminary, would be a rooftop eatery open to the public. As yet, the publicly financed convention hall offers no shopping and no restaurants meant to serve residents.

Officials said they won't have a price tag until mid-month.

For more about the task force, go to <a href="http://conventioncentertaskforce.org">conventioncentertaskforce.org</a>.